Agony for Curran

Batting heroics in vain as India seal one-day series

Eoin Morgan ruffled Sam Curran’s hair trying to lift his spirits moments after he had just fallen short of pulling off a heroic series-winning performance for England.

Curran smacked 95 off 83 balls, marshalling the tail like an old pro as he added 60 for the ninth wicket with Mark Wood; striking nine fours and three sixes by cleverly homing in on the short boundary on one side.

He handled the pressure and rattled India, whose spooked fielders dropped two dollies in a desperate penultimate over as they sensed the game, and series, slipping through their fingers.

But Thangarasu Natarajan coolly defended 14 off the last over by forgetting his own dropped catch moments earlier to produce some textbook yorkers that even Curran could not get away.

The seven-run victory gave India a clean sweep of the three series, leaving England empty-handed after all those days confined to a Covid-19 bubble.

This has been a tough tour – as trips to India always are. England made little progress in the Test series and failed to experiment in the Twenty20s, but Curran, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan and Reece Topley all contributed at one time or another, which at least made this one-day series about more than the result.

India won because ultimately their seamers were more skilful bowling on good batting pitches, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shardul Thakur excellent in forcing mistakes from the England batsmen, who stuck to their all-out attack method when a little more subtlety may have carried them home in the two games they lost.

This was a gettable target and Curran’s fightback, combined with India’s woeful fielding, took England closer than they deserved.

“This was a massive learning curve for me,” said the 22-year-old, who now heads off to the Indian Premier League. “I’m really happy with the way I played and this was a great experience, but I love winning, so it is disappointing.

“I had a few messages from the dugout to take the game deep and face the majority of balls. It is a small boundary and the pitch was extremely good for batting, but fair play to Natarajan, he nailed his six deliveries at the end.”

India batted with more gusto at the top of their innings but they, too, could not find a batsman to build the innings around. Their total of 329 was under par on a small ground and fine batting surface, and to be bowled out with 10 balls to spare nearly cost them the game.

With the ball zipping on under the lights, the target was not going to intimidate England’s vaunted batting line-up. But, just like India, England struggled to establish partnerships, with batsmen getting themselves out when set, Kumar and Thakur sharing seven wickets.

Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow failed for once, and Ben Stokes did not capitalise on Hardik Pandya dropping a sitter when he was on 15, carting a waist-high full toss to midwicket for 35.

Jos Buttler’s form has fallen away, as has his head over to the off side, and he was lbw on review for 15. Livingstone and Malan propped up the innings, putting on 60 for the fifth wicket. Livingstone hit two crisp sixes and Malan made his maiden fifty in his third ODI. But he could not play the Joe Root anchor role for long enough to make himself undroppable.

Two balls after passing his halfcentury he pulled a half-volley to midwicket after Livingstone had become the second to fall to a full toss, drilling a return catch to Thakur.

Curran kept England going by adding 57 with Adil Rashid for the seventh wicket, India helping him along the way when Pandya dropped his second easy catch of the day at long on with Curran on 22. The score was 218 for seven and the game would have been over had